Triple Bill Mini Musings: Arse-kicking, Exploitation & Exploration...

Taken 2:
What's it about?
Revenge-fuelled sequel to the original Liam Neeson arse-kicker about a man with a particular set of skills suffering the consequences of his rampage of violence from the first movie, which was all predicated on rescuing his daughter from traffickers.
Who would I recognise in it?
Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Jansen, Rade Serbedzija, Jon Gries, Leland Orser.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
I'd heard some pretty bad things about it so I went in expecting the worst, but was pleasantly surprised in general. It's definitely not as good as the original, which was a surprisingly good and rather brutal action flick filled with memorable moments, but the sequel isn't a huge let down either. That said, with the filmmakers aiming for a PG-13 release in the states (which was further trimmed for a piss-weak 12A in the UK), it all feels like a soft scoop version of what came before - necks and bones are broken soundlessly, blood has been digitally removed or desaturated, and the extremely dark and sinister undertones of the original are mostly absent. There's a harder cut that was released on home video, but annoyingly the version shown on Sky Movies was the watered down cut of the flick. Director Olivier Megaton (Transporter 3, and Colombiana, both of which were lacklustre affairs) has put out a good-looking movie, even if the fight scenes become a tad jumbled with shaky cam fast cuts, but it's a hard act to follow the original film's Pierre Morel (District 13). See it in the uncut form, and expect a drop in quality, and without the spine-tingling moments of the original, and you'll see a serviceable follow-up - not great, not awful. Alright.

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